Dear EUPHA Digital Health & AI members,

Welcome to the latest DHAI newsletter. As we move through 2026, the conversation is shifting from “can we build it?” to “how do we govern it, implement it, and make it work fairly at scale?” That’s exactly where public health needs to be, translating innovation into systems that are safe, accountable, and inclusive.

In this issue, you’ll find updates from the Section and a selection of opportunities, calls for papers, upcoming initiatives, and resources you can plug into your work. If you’d like to contribute content or help shape our activities this year, get in touch at euphadhai@gmail.com 

The EUPHA DHAI Team

1. Editorial

The initial enthusiasm around building digital health tools has matured, and the conversation is now centered on a deeper, more consequential challenge.

This critical shift focuses on ensuring that innovation translates into systems that are safe, accountable, and inclusive, addressing the vital question of “how do we govern it, implement it, and make it work fairly at scale?”. The focus on digital health equity is now central to our mission, as evidenced by new calls for papers, such as the BMJ Digital Health & AI collection, which seeks interdisciplinary work on the social implications, intersectional impacts on marginalized groups, and stakeholder empowerment. Furthermore, recent publications highlight the necessity of bias-mitigated AI and the importance of closing the AI benefits gap to achieve population health equity.

Artificial intelligence is finally achieving the depth and linkage with public health that it truly deserves. AI is moving beyond abstract potential and into concrete public health applications, such as strengthening health system resilience and evidence-based decision-making in infectious disease management. The Frontiers in Public Health Research Topic, for instance, delves into AI-driven surveillance, predictive modeling, and solutions to antimicrobial resistance. We are moving towards a truly holistic, public health-grounded framework for assessing national digital public health maturity, as demonstrated by the DiPHMaturity Delphi Study. This ensures that AI’s impact is measured not just by technical metrics, but by its systemic contribution to health policy and equity.

Clearly, things are anything but boring in our field. We stand at a dynamic juncture of implementation science and policy. We are excited to share with you the latest opportunities, insights, and the way forward, including new research publications, education classes, and calls for experts. We encourage you to engage with the resources in this newsletter, contribute your expertise to initiatives like the DiPHMaturity Delphi Study, and help shape our activities this year.

Stefan Buttigieg

2. Call for Papers

Frontiers in Public Health is inviting submissions to a Research Topic on “Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health Innovations for Communicable Disease Surveillance, Prevention and Control” edited by Marcello Di Pumpo, Angelo D’Ambrosio, Francesco Baglivo, and colleagues. The collection seeks interdisciplinary research on AI-driven tools that strengthen health system resilience and evidence-based decision-making in infectious disease management, including:

• AI-driven surveillance: real-time outbreak detection, early warning systems, automated surveillance of health records
• predictive modeling and decision support: transmission modeling, resource allocation, ML-based risk factor analyses
• digital tools for prevention: vaccination monitoring, digital contact tracing, infodemic management
• Infection prevention and control innovations: AI-supported monitoring, HAI risk prediction, data integration
• antimicrobial resistance solutions: resistance pattern prediction, stewardship decision support, automated detection
• equity, ethics, and governance: model fairness and explainability, data privacy, implementation science, workforce training

Deadline: 25 August 2026

More info & submission: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/77731/artificial-intelligence-and-digital-health-innovations-for-communicable-disease-surveillance-prevention-and-control 

3. Spotlight on AI & Public Health – recent publications worth reading

• Barbarosa da Silva Jr et al. (2026). Bias-Mitigated AI as a Foundation for Resilient and Effective Health Systems. JMIR Public Health Surveill, 12: e88457. https://doi.org/10.2196/88457 
• del Rey Puech P et al. (2026). Demystifying artificial intelligence in health: What health policy-makers need to know. https://eurohealthobservatory.who.int/publications/i/demystifying-artificial-intelligence-in-health-what-health-policy-makers-need-to-know 
• Gorga A et al. (2026) Mapping digital public health training: are we preparing the European workforce? Front. Public Health 14: 1778953. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1778953
• Morley J & Floridi L (2026). Closing the AI benefits gap: Systems design for population health equity. Public Health, 253: 106205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2026.106205 
• Odone A. et al. (2026). Artificial intelligence and infectious diseases: an evidence-driven conceptual framework for research, public health, and clinical practice. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 26(3e): 152-e167. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(25)00412-8 
• Singletary V et al. (2026). Artificial Intelligence and the Public Health Workforce—Preparing for Our Future. Journal of Public Health Management & Practice 32(1): 152-154. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000002297 
• Sreya B (2026). Artificial intelligence in public health: a foundational shift or a technocratic distraction? Front. Public Health 14: 1789522. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1789522
• Topaz M. et al. (2026). Fabricated citations: an audit across 2·5 million biomedical papers. The Lancet. 407(10541): 1779-1781. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00603-3 
• Weirauch V. et al. (2026). Consensus-based reporting guideline for participatory development and evaluation of digital health interventions. npj Digit. Med. 9: 169. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-026-02355-5 
• World Health Organization (2026). Scaling innovations in public health systems: guidance and toolkit https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240120761 
• WHO Europe (2026). New WHO database helps countries turn health data into better policy. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/08-04-2026-new-who-database-helps-countries-turn-health-data-into-better-policy
• WHO Europe (2026). Equity across the regulation, implementation and evaluation of digital health: scoping review. https://www.who.int/europe/publications/i/item/WHO-EURO-2026-13153-52927-82472 

4. Call for Experts: DiPHMaturity Delphi Study

Researchers from the University of Bremen (Leibniz ScienceCampus Digital Public Health Bremen) and the EUPHA Digital Health & AI Section are developing a comprehensive assessment tool to measure national digital public health maturity, moving beyond technical metrics to a truly holistic, public health-grounded framework.

Why this matters: Existing maturity assessment tools often lack the granularity needed to identify specific health system strengths and weaknesses or to inform evidence-based digital health policy. The DiPHMaturity Delphi Study addresses this gap through an interdisciplinary approach examining 100 maturity indicators across four domains:

• ICT infrastructure for health systems
• digital health service implementation
• participation in digital health services
• digital health policy frameworks

What’s involved: Expert participants will rank indicators by importance and contribute to developing a weighting system for realistic national-level assessments. The resulting tool will enable country benchmarking and support sustainable digital transformation in health systems globally.

Contribute your expertise and share this invitation in your network: 

https://limesurvey.bremen-social-sciences.de/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=919829&lang=en 

5. (Online) education classes and upcoming summer schools on digital public health

Who: Johns Hopkins University: Digitizing Population Health in Low-Resource Settings.

Start: Anytime after 9 April 2026

Costs: 42€ (or free as part of Coursera Plus)

Level: Beginners

Duration: 10 hours

https://www.coursera.org/learn/global-digital-health?

Who: PAHO. Certified Webinar Series on Artificial Intelligence – Part 1

Start: Anytime

Costs: Free

Level: Beginners

Duration: 5 hours

https://campus.paho.org/en/course/WebinarDigitalHealth

Who: PAHO. Certified Webinar Series on Artificial Intelligence – Part 2

Start: Anytime

Costs: Free

Level: Beginners

Duration: 5 hours

https://campus.paho.org/en/course/WebinarArtificialIntelligenceII 

Who: PAHO. Integration of telehealth in the primary health care with the application of simulation models

Start: Anytime

Costs: Free

Level: Beginners

Duration: 40 hours

https://campus.paho.org/en/course/WebinarDigitalHealth

Who: Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Summer School on Digital Health at the Crossroads: Balancing Progress and Individual Rights

When: 1 – 5 June 2026

Where: Brussels, Belgium

https://digitalhealth.tu-dresden.de/hall-ekfz-summer-school-2026/ 

Who: Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma – Summer School on Artificial Intelligence in Health and Life Sciences

Costs: 600 €

When: 15 – 19 June 2026

Where: Rome, Italy

https://ucbmacademy.unicampus.it/summer-school-artificial-intelligence/

Who: Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich – 6th European Summer School on Evidence-Based Public Health

Costs: 750 € (early bird before 29 June; 950 € after 29 June)

When: 20 – 24 July 2026

Where: Munich, Germany

https://ihrs-en.ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de/events/ebph-summer-school/index.html 

Who: Tallinn University – Summer School on Design of Digital Services for Health Behaviour Change

Costs: 500 €

When: 20 – 31 July 2026

Where: Tallinn, Estonia

https://summerschool.tlu.ee/design-of-digital-services-for-health/?utm_source=summerschoolsineurope&utm_medium=main_page&utm_campaign=2026 

Who: University of Bremen – Summer Camp on the Internet of Things and Agriculture/Public Health

When: 17 – 28 August 2026; register before 15 June!

Where: Bremen, Germany

https://iot-summercamp-bremen.de/about/

Who: Swiss School of Public Health  – Lugano Summer School in Public Health: AI in Public Health: Responsible and productive use of new technologies

Costs: 1200 CHF (discounts available for students and LMICs participants)

When: 20 – 22 August 2026

Where: Lugano, Switzerland

https://www.ssph-lugano-summerschool.ch/courses/ai-in-public-health 

Who: University of Antwerp – Summer School on Modelling Infectious Diseases and Health Economics

Costs: 700 €

When: 31 August – 4 September 2026

Where: Antwerp, Belgium

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/summer-winter-schools/modelling-infectious-diseases/ 

6. Upcoming DHAI Webinar Series

Our Section has officially started organizing a new webinar series dedicated to current challenges and emerging perspectives in digital health and artificial intelligence for public health. The organizing committee is composed of Francesco Baglivo, Chiara Barbati, Patricia Pita Ferreira, Robbe Saesen, Ekin Tanriverdi, Melanie Kuhrn, Hashaam Akhtar, and Aldo Gorga.

More information on the upcoming sessions, topics, and speakers will be shared soon through the Section’s communication channels. Stay tuned!

7. Contribute to the section newsletter and social!

Thank you for reading the second edition of our 2026 newsletter. As your Communication Pillar, I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on this evolving format. We want the newsletter to become a dynamic and valuable resource for everyone in our section. If you come across interesting articles, upcoming conferences or webinars, job opportunities, or if you have any feedback to share, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Dr. Francesco Baglivo